I love my career, its been my passion for 30+ years. I have spent many years since graduating back in further education while I work full-time to keep up with advances in my field. I love talking to school kids about what I do and it has a real-world impact on people. However, in the five years since Covid I have been left feeling really disconnected.
Before the pandemic I travelled a lot, five or more major overseas trips a year wasn't unusual. I met collegues face-to-face and presented at conferences around the world. While I dont really enjoy being away from home, I loved the energy of meetings, working on something tangible and seeing ideas being generated.
I chaired a committee within my professional body, and I loved meeting academics, research students and others.
None of this exists any more. The seminars have turned into Webinars and dull, faceless Teams calls. I now push virtual post-its around a Slack board, tick boxes in MS Project and less and less videos are turned on.
I no longer have to renew my CPD hours every two years, its been moved to a five year model so there is less pressure to keep things interesting.
I am well aware of the overall benefits to the flexible, working from home model.
However, I am sick to death of books, podcasts and a sandwich for one at lunch time. My colleagues are not that far away but are rarely talked into meeting up. A lot of lockdown dogs need walked at lunchtime 😉 Its a struggle to organise the Christmas night out. I even miss shopping for new work clothes and shoes. I now have quite a stack on Vinted.
What do I do to stay engaged? My job is well paid, the work itself is interesting and I am busy. It just seems that I jump from one online call to the next, to a webinar (yawn), to sitting in silence while I work from the spare room/office.